I-T dept serves notice of Rs 7cr to MP school teacher 10 years after her death
BHOPAL: In what may sound outlandish, a government school female teacher, who passed away in November 2013, has received a demand notice worth over Rs 7.55 crore from the Income Tax department in Betul district of Madhya Pradesh.
The demand notice worth Rs 7,55,69,028 relates to the assessment year 2017-18, pertaining to the purchase of scrap worth over Rs 4.54 crore using her account/PAN details. The notice sent to Usha Soni (a teacher in a government school in Betul district’s Pathkheda village who died on November 16, 2013) was received by her son and retired forest department employee husband on July 28.
“My mother died after a prolonged illness in November 2013, but the notice pertains to the assessment year 2017-18. The notice mentions a company, Natural Costing, which is engaged in the business of scrap materials. This notice suggests that my mother’s PAN (Permanent Account Number) has been misused, but we had no idea about it before receiving the IT department notice,” the dead teacher’s son Pawan Soni said. Pawan works in a private company.
The Soni family has subsequently reported the matter to the Betul district police. In the same Betul district, a man Nitin Jain, who works at a shop selling iron rods (monthly earning Rs 5,000 to Rs 7,000) has received a demand notice from the IT department worth a staggering Rs 1.26 crore. On enquiring about the notice from the IT department, he came to know that a bank account using his details is active in Tamil Nadu’s Courtallam town since 2014-15.
Surprisingly, it is not just the dead female teacher or the iron rods shop employee in whose name the demand notices have been sent by the IT department, but more than 40 people in the same tribal-dominated Betul district have reportedly received demand notices from the department, for sums ranging between Rs 1 crore and Rs 10 crore.
According to Betul district police superintendent Siddharth Chaudhary, two complaints, alleging misuse of PAN details, have been received so far. “We have initiated a detailed probe and are trying to get more details from the IT department about those two matters,” Chaudhary said.
According to informed sources, it is not just lower-middle-class individuals in Betul, but similar individuals in other districts of MP, including Rewa, Khandwa and Bhind too, who have received similar notices from the IT department for sums running into crores of rupees.
PAN card fraud
More than 40 people in the same tribal-dominated Betul district, have received demand notices from the IT Department for sums ranging from Rs 1 cr to Rs 10 cr. These developments suggest that PAN details of the economically weak have been misused to open bank accounts in the name of companies outside MP.